Microsoft focuses on Mobile Apps

The hiring of Mr. Weingarten – the founder & CEO of a mobile based nutrition application, Fooducate through which people can be able to make their food related choices better, by Microsoft Corp. was a clear signal that the giant is now in full temperament to step up in smartphone market to compete its competitors – Google and Apple. To win the race, the Giant organized a week-long boot camp in Israel along with the provision of a Windows Phone based device for software testing purpose, developed by Nokia Corp.

On the other hand, Mr. Weingarten refused to develop the application for Windows Phone by saying

“We decided to focus our energies on the bigger platforms of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android”

regardless of the Microsoft’s offers.

This was a big shock for Microsoft because Weingarten’s refusal, blemish the company’s efforts to attract app developers and to take them on board.

To cope up with this, they held about 900 sessions worldwide to train app makers on Windows Phone software design last year along with other enticements.

Google being casual to app developers has recently started presenting online classes as well as a training site which will aid developers in building apps. This is a worthy measure taken by Google to keep its position in the market stable.

From the development perspective of app, the role and the anticipations of developers are significant to the success of any company. Many of the developers appreciate Microsoft’s toil towards Windows based smartphones because the company is more compassionate than Google and Apple and provide easy app tools to work with. But on the other side of the picture, some developers anticipate that Microsoft can’t catch up with the current market leaders - Google and Apple, until the company explains its strategy about even if apps will work with upcoming software releases including Windows 8 as well as the subsequent computer OS anticipated for Desktop & Tablets this year.

In smartphones, apps play a vital role for buyers for which Microsoft is combating hard by opening Windows Phone app sales in more than a dozen countries including China. They are also spending an enormous amount for the development of apps through third-party companies on their behalf in recent months. It sounds good that in Windows Phone updates, the company is accommodating input from app makers which will certainly help it in achieving its goal – to beat Google and Apple!

If we analyze statistics from the viewpoint of apps, Google & Apple lead the market by having nearly more than half a million phones using either Android or iPhone apps, whereby Windows powered phones have only 70K apps which are relatively very much low. Moreover, Google's Android powered phones capture 50.1% market of smartphones, followed by Apple’s powered iPhone with 30.2% shares and Microsoft only managed to capture 3.9% share in United States despite of its alliance with Samsung and Nokia. These facts and figures enforce Microsoft to cleave the domination of iPhone and Android as head of Microsoft’s Windows Phone business, Terry Myerson says

“Some of those apps I wish we have”

For the promotion and marketing, Microsoft has hired two prominent marketers - Redmond Pie and Wash to derive their marketing campaign by providing developers with the essential resources and motives to create apps for Windows Mobile Phones as Mr. Myerson highlighted by saying

“What we need to do is go invest in telling the Windows Phones story to people around the world… and we haven’t done that. When that is achieved, it will start a virtuous cycle with developers”.

Nokia’s first ever Window powered Phone Lumia 900, which has been marketed well so far by the marketers will be in stores soon and therefore will be the crucial assessment of consumers’ interest in such devices.